SNTP on dedicated (single) machine, or let DC be the SNTP for the domain ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Marlon Brown
  • Start date Start date
M

Marlon Brown

a) I have an option to setup the SNTP server in a dedicated Win2003 server.
My concern is that that would be a point of failure.

b) Or I can let one of my DC's be the SNTP server. Usually Dc's tend to be
more susceptible to monitoring, so that would be more high available.

Let me know if you have any input on this.
 
Windows Server 2003 already includes a reasonably good time synchronisation
feature by default. The only server that normally needs to be synchronised
with an external SNTP time source is the PDC Emulator in the forest root
domain. Use the net time /setsntp command to do this. Time should then flow
down the rest of your domain.
 
Thanks. Do you think any reason why I should setup my
single-point-of-failure SNTP server ? Some folks in my company want to do
that.
I think I would be better off using an external SNTP service. Please advise
which one you believe it is reliable.
 
You'll get a more accurate source of time by using an external one. I
posted this link to one of your other questions, it's a good list of time
servers by country:
-- http://support.microsoft.com/?id=262680


The most important thing here is that all machines are synchronised, and are
within 5 minutes of each other (this will happen by default). This is more
important than the actual time itself. If you didn't use an external
source, and just let everything synchronise with the (root) PDCe that would
be fine too.


--

Paul Williams

http://www.msresource.net/
http://forums.msresource.net/
 
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